Tag Archives: Accomplishment

Knowing what you want and knowing how to get it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t do the work. That is what discipline means to me. Doing the work. No. Matter. What. No complaints. No griping. Just get it done.

People will ask me, “why do you get up so early in the morning?” It is a very simple answer. Because that is what it takes to get the things done that I want to do. Do I enjoy my alarm going off at 3:50 AM? Nope. Are there days I want to sleep in? Yep. But if I do, I am making a choice not to do something that I want to do and that just isn’t acceptable to me.

To be completely honest I still don’t accomplish all the things that I want to do. I would love to get more done. I feel like I need to improve my personal discipline and focus each and every day to become the person God created me to be.

How do you demonstrate personal accountability and discipline in your life? How does extreme discipline help you achieve your goals?

Like this:

“Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.”

Theodore Isaac Rubin

Think back to some of the biggest accomplishments in your life. Did the satisfaction come from achieving the simple things or was it the completion of some momentous goal? There is nothing like doing the really hard work and then seeing the finished product. The beauty of this is that it also creates a desire for more hard work because you know what you are capable of accomplishing when you perform at your best.

I can’t remember all the easy tasks and accomplishments from my life but I can easily list the efforts that were the hardest to achieve. I felt happiness but also a sense of purpose and pride, that the hard work was worth it and had paid off.

I vividly remember being at mile #16 during my last Ironman marathon knowing that I only had 10 miles left to go, that all the pain in my body was temporary, that all the training and effort put in to get that point was paying off. The last mile of the race was a blur but running through the crowds at the finish line was pain free even though every fiber of my body was tired and ready to quit. The Ironman race (or any other endurance event) is never really accomplished on race day. It is completed well beforehand during the long training days and early morning workouts. The race itself is the reward, the feeling of accomplishment afterwards is the icing on the cake, it becomes the fuel for the next big thing.

The feeling of happiness from accomplishing some great task is both the reward, and the motivation for future endeavors. What is the next great thing that is worthy of your very best?

In today’s world everything is beeping and dinging and chirping to get your attention. Their is a constant barrage of information coming at you to try and take part of your precious time and energy. In this world of continuous distraction how can you focus, where do you start?

It starts with writing down the goals. I’ve found that anything short of a written goal is simply a wish or an aspiration. Writing the goal down, meditating over it, thinking through the necessary steps to make it a reality. That’s where it starts. But that isn’t enough. Actually taking action and putting those steps in place on a daily and ongoing basis requires the discipline to say no to the things that going to get in the way of making that goal a reality.

I think that is the key. Discipline isn’t some great “yes” to suddenly doing the right things. Discipline requires a strong “no” to the things that are going to get in the way of your goal. Knowing what needs to be done, and then having the conviction to do them, is critical.

It reminds me of the great quote by Muhammad Ali, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”

To enhance your ability to make your goals a reality what do you need to have the discipline to say “no” to?